Promotion of the Self

Shout-out to one of my fellow authors at Solstice Publishing, and to an article she has written about a little thing she calls New Authoritis. If you ever intend to be a New Author, it’s worth reading!

We authors – and all other types of creators, as well – just hate that whole “self-promotion” thing. Most of us are not very good at it, for one thing, and nobody likes to do things they aren’t good at. K.C. Sprayberry reassures us we don’t have to be one of those obnoxious salesmen everyone loathes – we just have to be ourselves. The thing is: you have do this “being yourself” stuff out in public, where people can see you, and you have to start doing it long before you want to see results.

I think/hope I’ve tried to do that. I started this blog and its associated web site the day after I finished the first volume in the Woodley story arc, before I even started submitting it for publication. I started my Twitter account then, too, and I’m still trying to get the hang of that beast. Ugh, just think if I had waited until the book actually comes out before getting started! I’m really glad I got the jump on that monster.

The main reason I did it, though, was because I thought: How fun would it be if social media had existed back when many of the novels we know and love today had first been written? We could, in hindsight, watch the adventures of our beloved stories from creation through Query Hell, to editing and release and onward. I would love it if I could do that, and I started this blog mainly to provide this experience for the people I hope will one day call themselves fans of Callaghan McCarthy, and George, and Woodley, USA.

About Kim Beall

I started sneaking into the basement to read my parents' massive collection of science fiction, fantasy, and gothic romance when I was nine years old, and I spent my teenage years writing reams of Awesome Novels. This might have worked out better for me if I had not written them during math class.